XXIII. EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES 1. A volcano is an opening made in the earth's crust by internal heat, which has forced melted or heated matter through the rent. An earthquake is the effect of the confined gases and vapors, produced by the heat upon the crust. When the volcano, therefore, gets vent, the earthquake always ceases; but the latter has generally been more destructive of life than the former. 2. Where one city has been destroyed by volcanic action, like Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiæ, twenty have been shaken down by the rocking and heaving of earthquakes. The records of ancient as well as modern times abound with examples of these tremendous catastrophes. Preeminent on the list is the city of Antioch. 3. Imagine the inhabitants of that great city, crowded with strangers on a festival occasion, suddenly arrested on a calm day by the earth heaving and rocking beneath their feet; and in a few moments two hundred and fifty thousand of them buried by falling houses, or the earth opening and swallowing them up. 4. Such was the scene which that city presented in the year 526; and several times before and since that period has the like calamity fallen upon it, and twenty, forty, and sixty thousand of its inhabitants have been destroyed at each time. In the year 17 after Christ, no less than thirteen cities in Asia Minor were, in like manner, overwhelmed in a single night. 5. Think of the terrible destruction that came upon Lisbon in 1755. The sun had just dissipated the fog in a warm, calm morning, when suddenly the subterranean thundering and heaving began; and in six minutes the city was a heap of ruins, and sixty thousand of the inhabitants were numbered among the dead. Hundreds had crowded upon a new quay surrounded by vessels. In a moment the earth opened beneath them, and the wharf, the vessels, and the crowd went down into its bosom; the gulf closed, the sea rolled over the spot, and no vestige of wharf, vessels, or man ever floated to the surface. 6. How thrilling is the account left us by Kircher, who was near, of the destruction of Euphemia, in Calabria, a city of about five thousand inhabitants, in the year 1638! "After some time," says he, "the violent paroxysm of the earthquake ceasing, I stood up, and, turning my eyes to look for Euphemia, saw only a frightful black cloud. We waited till it had passed away, when nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was to be seen where the city once stood." In like manner did Port Royal, in the West Indies, sink beneath the waters with nearly all its inhabitants, in less than one minute, in the year 1692. 7. Still more awful, though usually less destructive, is often the scene presented by a volcanic eruption. Imagine yourselves, for instance, upon one of the wide, elevated plains of Mexico, far from the fear of volcanoes. The earth begins to quake under your feet, and the most alarming subterranean noises admonish you of a mighty power within the earth that must soon have vent. 8. You flee to the surrounding mountains in time to look back and see ten square miles of the plain swell up, like a bladder, to the height of five hundred feet, while numerous smaller cones rise from the surface still higher, and emit smoke; and, in their midst, six mountains are thrown up to the height, some of them at least, of sixteen hundred feet, and pour forth melted lava, turning rivers out of their course, and spreading terrific desolation over a late fertile plain, and forever excluding its former inhabitants. Such was the eruption by which Jorullo, in Mexico, was suddenly thrown up in 1759. 9. Still more terrific have been some of the eruptions in Iceland. In 1783 earthquakes of tremendous power shook the whole island, and flames burst forth from the ocean. In June these ceased, and Skaptar Jokul opened its mouth; nor did it close till it had poured forth two streams of lava, one sixty miles long and twelve miles. broad, and the other forty miles long and seven broad, and both with an average thickness of one hundred feet. During that summer the inhabitants saw the sun no more, and all Europe was covered with a haze. 10. Around the Papandayang, one of the loftiest mountains in Java, no less than forty villages were reposing in peace. But in August, 1772, a remarkable luminous cloud, enveloping its top, aroused them from their security. But it was too late; for at once the mountain. began to sink into the earth, and soon it had disappeared, with the forty villages and most of the inhabitants, over a space fifteen miles long and six broad. 11. Still more extraordinary, the most remarkable on record, was an eruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca Islands, in 1815. It began on the fifth day of April, and did not cease till July. The explosions were heard in one direction nine hundred and seventy miles. So heavy was the fall of ashes at the distance of forty miles, that houses were crushed and destroyed. The floating cinders in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were two feet thick, and the vessels were forced through them with difficulty. The darkness in Java, three hundred miles distant, was deeper than the blackest night; and finally, out of the twelve thousand inhabitants of the island, only twenty-six survived the catastrophe. Edward Hitchcock. FOR PREPARATION.-I. Find on the map Hercula'neum, Pompeii (pronounced pom-pā'yē), Antioch, Asia Minor, Lisbon, Calabria, Port Royal, Jorullo (ho-rōol'yo), Skaptar Jokul (yō kool), Sumbawa (sŭm-ba’wa). II. Tre-měn'-doŭs, ea-tăs'-tro-pheş, an'-cient (-shent), quay (kế), ex-traôr'-di-na-ry (-trôr'-), e-rŭp'-tion, Kir'-cher (nearly kir ker). III. Make a list of the names of objects in this piece that express more than one, and underscore the part of the word which is changed to express this (e. g., gas-es, vapor-s, earthquake-s, etc.). IV. Admonish, catastrophe, vapors, rent, calamity, subterranean, vestige, paroxysm, awful, emit, lava, luminous, haze, security, survived, preeminent, overwhelmed, dissipated. V. Some of the statements in this piece differ from those of other authorities. It seems that the mountain (10) said to have sunk is still about 8,000 feet high. The 12,000 inhabitants mentioned (11) were those of one district, and were only a small part of the population of the island, or of the whole number destroyed. 1. 2. XXIV. SUNDAY. O Day most calm, most bright! The fruit of this, the next world's bud; Writ by a Friend, and with his blood; The other days and thou Make up one man, whose face thou art, 3. 4. The burden of the week lies there, Making the whole to stoop and bow, Man had straightforward gone To endless death; but thou dost pull We could not choose but look on still; Sundays the pillars are On which heaven's palace archéd lies; They are the fruitful beds and borders George Herbert. FOR PREPARATION.-I. Izaak Walton, the angler, calls the author of this piece the "holy Herbert" (VII.). II. Fruit (frut), in-dôrse'-ment, re-lease', straight (strät), păl'-açe, văn-i-tieş, knock’-ing (nok-). III. Make a list of the various metaphors under which Herbert describes Sunday. What meanings do the following endings give to the words where they are found?-ne in gone ;-st in dost;—y in thy;-se in whose. IV. "Archéd," "ranks and orders." "The V. "The next world's bud" (i. e., the fruit of this world is only the bud of what is to develop in the next). "Indorsement" (on the back of a "promise to pay"). "Writ by "what "Friend"? "Time's couch." "Care's calm" (ocean calm)" and bay " (sheltered from the winds). working days are the back" (a burden on the back), "making the whole (body) to stoop and bow." Sundays are the pillars, and week days the rubbish stored between; Sundays the rich garden beds, and the week days the barren paths between them (4). |